In this series, I will examine what the GOP needs to do to avoid political irrelevence in the coming years and make a comeback in a changing America.

1) The Electoral College is not your friend.  And heres the problem. In states Democrats have won in the last 6 elections, Democrats get 242 Electoral votes. The Republican make noise every year about how they are going to contest them, and they are usually called before 9 PM. In three other states theyve won 5 of the last six times, they get another 15. So in short, the Democrat pretty much starts at 257. That just allows them to pick and choose which state they put their chips on while Republicans have to cover all the bases.

More to the point, it lets party apparatuses atrophy in Blue states where there are still a lot of voters who would be happy to vote for you. That could make you more competitive in Senate and House races.

The GOP should make this a signature issue, for no other reason than making the Dems ironically defend the mechanism that put George W. Bush in office. And there are two levels they can fight this fight. One is pushing to have more states do it the way Nebraska and Maine do it (by congressional district). The other is to push for a constitutional amendment.

The reasons why the GOP will resist. Part of it is their recalcitrance to admiting old Dubya was a huge mistake. The other is that there are a lot of what I like to call "constitutional fetishists" out there who think that the Constitution was written on Stone Tablets, and if their 18th century minds didn't think of it, it must not be valid.

In this series, I will examine what the GOP needs to do to avoid political irrelevence in the coming years and make a comeback in a changing America.

1) The Electoral College is not your friend.  And heres the problem. In states Democrats have won in the last 6 elections, Democrats get 242 Electoral votes. The Republican make noise every year about how they are going to contest them, and they are usually called before 9 PM. In three other states theyve won 5 of the last six times, they get another 15. So in short, the Democrat pretty much starts at 257. That just allows them to pick and choose which state they put their chips on while Republicans have to cover all the bases.

More to the point, it lets party apparatuses atrophy in Blue states where there are still a lot of voters who would be happy to vote for you. That could make you more competitive in Senate and House races.

The GOP should make this a signature issue, for no other reason than making the Dems ironically defend the mechanism that put George W. Bush in office. And there are two levels they can fight this fight. One is pushing to have more states do it the way Nebraska and Maine do it (by congressional district). The other is to push for a constitutional amendment.

The reasons why the GOP will resist. Part of it is their recalcitrance to admiting old Dubya was a huge mistake. The other is that there are a lot of what I like to call "constitutional fetishists" out there who think that the Constitution was written on Stone Tablets, and if their 18th century minds didn't think of it, it must not be valid.

If this was a pure "get out the vote" thing, then Obama would have spent a lot more money in CA and Romney would have spent more money in TX, and their votes would have counted more. Maybe there would have been a different outcome.

Keep in mind, 10 million less people voted in 2012 than 2008, because they realized their votes counted for less.

As it stands now, this election only happened in about 7-10 states (Depending on which ones you think were really in play.) That gives the GOP a serious disadvantage, as they have to cover all of them while the Dems can pick just a few.

And frankly, I'd rather have these elections decided in the "big cities" where people live rather than rural wastelands like IA and NH that already have an outsized role in this process in the stupid primaries.

the news outlets love the electorial college because its power is in the east where the majority of the news outlets are
the west, intermountain west means nothing in the election process. No one visits id, mt, ut, anymore.

the news outlets love the electorial college because its power is in the east where the majority of the news outlets are
the west, intermountain west means nothing in the election process. No one visits id, mt, ut, anymore.

Click to expand...

I noticed the West Coast was essentially an afterthought. Liberals have turned into a deadzone.

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